A collection of articles on Leadership development utilizing a positive psychology i.e. well-being and strengths based approach to the workplace.

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

Hi Folks,

Pls consider following my new scoop.it topic 'Flourish Mentoring' as I will be curating workplace and leadership related articles under that topic from now on. I'll be using the 'positive psychology' topic more for basic research in positive psychology and applications to say school settings, but all applications to workspace settings will now be covered under 'Flourish Mentoring'.

Pls consider following my new scoop.it topic 'Flourish Mentoring' as I will be curating workplace and leadership related articles under that topic from now on. I'll be using the 'positive psychology' topic more for basic research in positive psychology and applications to say school settings, but all applications to workspace settings will now be covered under 'Flourish Mentoring'.

Positive psychology resources, authors and researchers on Twitter Feeds from VIA Character, character strengths expert that offers the VIA Survey on Character.

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

I use VIA extensively in my #positive #education work with students, so its very gratifying to find myself listed among other positive psychology luminaries on this VIA page. So thankful to VIA for the same!

People who know what they want, enduring gruelling competitive environments to achieve. People who had the passion and relentless perseverance to stick at something until they were successful. Grit…

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

Good points to keep in mind as we roll out Grit as the first( of many) character strengths to be developed at a school; I still disagree that the benefits don't outweigh the downsides, grit has to be inculcated but with the right context.

The field of positive psychology was born when researchers noticed that psychology was awfully negative—focusing on illness and suffering but mute on the topic of how to thrive and flourish.

Two decades later, you could say that positive psychology is moving past this dichotomy of positive and negative, toward a more nuanced perspective on the good life. At least, that was one of the themes at the International Positive Psychology Association’s 5th World Congress, a four-day conference held earlier this month that brought together more than 1,300 researchers, practitioners, students, and journalists in Montreal, Canada.

Researchers shared the complexities and complications they were uncovering about the elements of well-being, from gratitude and mindfulness to passion and grit. Here are some of their insights.

in a study published just this month, researchers at University College London found that, for people over the age of 65, a sense of purpose and overall well-being meant that they were 30% less likely to die over a period of eight and a half years.

‘Do you have a strong sense of purpose, meaning, and passion for a better world in your life?’ If you answer yes to this question, then you may have a 15% higher chance of still being alive in the 2028. That sounds crazy, but indeed it’s based on longitudinal research – in 2000, more than 6000 people were asked this and similar questions. In Man's Search for Meaning Victor Frankl demonstrated how sense of meaning is absolutely life promoting. Frankl, as we all know, was in a concentration camp where everything was taken from him and others, and yet he saw resources, relationships, and regenerative possibilities that gave life to many, and built a whole new edifice and field of transformational capacity in psychology. There are examples after examples of Frankl's idea of finding the life-promoting meaning in the midst of extreme suffering; they are threaded throughout his accounts in the harsh conditions of the Nazi concentration camps. In his 1959 book--"Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experience the Concentration Camp" he said, "What is to give light must endure burning." What's important about the London study cited in this article is that we are heading into an era that's been called The Purpose Economy (see Aaron Hurst's book)--and I have seen how people flourish, and companies prosper, when the sense of real purpose is ablaze. For example I interviewed an associate at the Tesla display store in Amsterdam. The young person was alive. He was responsive. He was as bright about the technical questions I asked as anyone at "the shop floor level" I have ever seen. I wondered why. I asked him:"can you tell me--what's your job here at Tesla?" He did not hesitate a moment: "My job is to electrify the renewable energy age" he said. But, I said, what is it that you do here at Tesla in this display center? He said "I told you--my job, and i feel so privileged, is to electrify the renewable energy age!" Then i tried a different angle. I still wanted to understand his job. This time I wanted to make it simple. So I asked "When you tell your mother what you do in your job, what do you tell her about your work?" He said it again: "Just as I've shared with you I have shared it with my mother, that is, my job is to electrify the renewable energy age, and Tesla might well be the best company in the world today to help me help get this task of historic magnitude actually done." Wow. And with this sense of Purpose and meaning, not only is everyday at work a special mission, but we can bet that with this kind of flourishing this young person will actually boost his odds of being healthier and live longer that those working without a sense of life-giving purpose. We call this dynamic "mirror flourishing"--whereupon by a company and its people doing good to help the world to flourish "out there" guess who also really flourishes? Yes "the out there" becomes "the in here" and this dynamic is predictable--yes it's no accident that the young Tesla missionary was so impressive at work-- and this health enabling dynamic is demonstrated over and over at this storytelling site called www.aim2flourish.com.

For years the science of positive psychology has been a great source of knowledge regarding what "goes right" rather than what "goes wrong" with people. Unfortunately, it has also been the source of the most persistent misinformation about happiness.

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

These re not necessarily myths as per me, but definitely some nuanced understanding and depiction is required here.

"In the experience of love lies the only answer to being human, lies sanity."

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

" In loving I experience “I am you,” you — the loved person, you — the stranger, you — everything alive. In the experience of love lies the only answer to being human, lies sanity." Note the similarity between Fromm's notion of Love (self love, love to others and humanity) and the practice of Loving Kindness meditation.

Something unusual and significant is happening in Toronto, quietly and under the radar. Every other Sunday afternoon, people from all walks of life gather at my home for our regular Meaningful Living Meetup. On average, more than 30 people cram into my living room. Participants learn that the human capacity for meaning-seeking and meaning-making not…

Sandeep Gautam's insight:

the more I read of how Dr Wong is giving away positive psychology and championing the PP2.0 , the more awe and elevation I feel!

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